Darren New wrote:
> Um, no. They behave exactly the opposite. MS's boot sector will boot 
> whatever partition is marked "active".  Remember that MS has been making 
> multiple OSes for a long time. You've always been able to multi-boot off 
> MS operating systems.
> 

Umm. Wait.. Being "allowed" to pick, if I choose to, which OS to boot, 
without having to fiddle with "active" flags, is a bad thing? I must 
admit to being a tad confused here. It sounds like you are suggesting a 
high tech version of the goofy, "I installed a switch, so that before I 
turn the machine on, I can pick if I want the Windows or the Linux HDD 
to be the master!". First thing I thought when I saw it was, "OK, so.. 
How do I set this up so that it uses an electronic switch, so that I can 
simply toggle the switch, while the machine is still running, and have 
it flip the drives during the reboot, when the machine shuts down 
temporarily, before restarting?" The last thing on my mind was, "How do 
I make it harder to flip the switch.", which is what having to directly 
specify "which" partition is active, while, possibly, the wrong OS 
booted in the first place, from a cold start, does to the boot sequence.

I.e., instead of waiting 5 seconds for Grub/Lilo to time out and 
autoboot the default, I have to boot all the way into what ever OS is 
currently "active" before I can tell it I *really* wanted to boot into 
the other one. WTF?


-- 
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   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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nemesis wrote:
> How do a layman do that?  But then again, a layman won't install Linux 
> anyway...

fdisk, diskpart, the disk management GUI, or whatever it is you normally 
use to partition the GUI.

I'm not sure YaST lets you do it, but that's almost expected, given that 
Linux ignores the flag.  I'm pretty sure I remember the linux 
command-line partitioner (whatever it's called ... fdisk?) letting you 
set it.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Umm. Wait.. Being "allowed" to pick, if I choose to, which OS to boot, 
> without having to fiddle with "active" flags, is a bad thing? 

No, of course not. And both Windows and Linux let you do that, and 
neither lets you conveniently edit the menus of the others.

But being allowed to pick which OS to boot by fiddling with the active 
flags is *also* supported by Windows, but not by Linux.

In other words, the standard MBR says "load the boot sector from the 
active partition."  If this is Windows, Windows reads boot.ini and gives 
you a choice. So it's two steps.

But if (for example) you have the GRUB boot partition, you cannot delete 
the Linux partition and still be able to boot the machine. If you have 
the standard boot partition, you can set a different partition active 
(while you're deleting the Windows partition anyway) and get that OS 
starting up.

> I.e., instead of waiting 5 seconds for Grub/Lilo to time out and 
> autoboot the default, I have to boot all the way into what ever OS is 
> currently "active" before I can tell it I *really* wanted to boot into 
> the other one. WTF?

No, you're misunderstanding. If the standard MBR is there, it'll give 
you the menu configured into whatever OS is on the partition that's 
"active".  If the GRUB MBR is there, it gives you Linux's menu, 
regardless of what's active.

Both Windows and Linux offer boot-time menus for picking which OS you 
want, without having to start up the whole kernel first. Windows *also* 
lets you use someone else's menu if you want to.

And yes, if it's Linux, and you want it to boot a different OS, you have 
to wait to go all the way into Linux before you can change the default 
OS to boot. And once you've done that, you're screwed, because you can 
never boot back into Linux again unless you're sitting at the console. 
So, don't try to switch back and forth remotely, which is what I was 
talking about in the first place.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> ntfs-3g can write safely to NTFS partitions.
> 
> Yes, but since (as I understand it) you need a copy of ntfs.sys on your
> Linux partition to make that work, Linux first has to already be booted
> and capable of mounting the right drive and finding ntfs.sys to copy it.
> I guess you could do it, but it certainly sounds ... messy. :-)

No, that's the old and unsafe system. ntfs-3g is an actual implementation of
the NTFS filesystem.

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> No, that's the old and unsafe system. ntfs-3g is an actual implementation of
> the NTFS filesystem.

See? I told you I don't know what I'm talking about with Linux. :-) Cool.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Darren New wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
>> How do a layman do that?  But then again, a layman won't install Linux 
>> anyway...
> 
> fdisk, diskpart, the disk management GUI, or whatever it is you normally 
> use to partition the GUI.
> 
> I'm not sure YaST lets you do it, but that's almost expected, given that 
> Linux ignores the flag.  I'm pretty sure I remember the linux 
> command-line partitioner (whatever it's called ... fdisk?) letting you 
> set it.

That was a rethoric question... a layman doesn't know how to partition 
disks or what the hell it is anyway. ;)

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On Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:23:10 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I was hoping I hadn't missed something with GRUB development. ;-)
> 
> In matters Linux, always assume I don't know more than you do. :-)

Thing is, I always assume I'm going to learn something new, especially 
when talking with you, Darren. :-)

>>>>> Maybe. I don't have any trouble using Windows' bootloader to load
>>>>> GRUB. You just have to set it up right. It's pretty trivial.
>>>> Yup.  But it's not something that I've ever seen automated by the
>>>> Linux installers.
>>> No, because they can't write to NTFS partitions.
>> 
>> ntfs-3g can write safely to NTFS partitions.
> 
> Yes, but since (as I understand it) you need a copy of ntfs.sys on your
> Linux partition to make that work, Linux first has to already be booted
> and capable of mounting the right drive and finding ntfs.sys to copy it.
> I guess you could do it, but it certainly sounds ... messy. :-)

I'm now wondering if that's the case - if it uses ntfs.sys; I was under 
the impression it does, but in searching for that information, it seems 
another driver, called the "captive" driver uses a shim from ReactOS to 
wrap around ntfs.sys.  I'll have to do a little more digging to see if 
ntfs-3g uses that or not.

>> Yeah, it's really kinda - well, expected, I guess - that MS behaves
>> that way about how the system boots.
> 
> Dude, it's been that was since the IBM XT came out.  The very first hard
> drive, before you could have more than 4 partitions, had a boot sector
> that would boot off the "active partition". That's what it's *for*.

Well, yes.  There was specific boot sector code in the MBR to do that, 
though.  GRUB can be installed either way, but it does enhance things a 
bit more - kinda like the old System Commander software did.

> Yes, MS's boot sector follows the standard that's been around for a
> decade longer than Linux has. GRUB's doesn't. What do you think MS is
> doing wrong here?

My understanding is that the Microsoft MBR (at least as included in 
Vista, possibly with older versions as well) depends on that boot.ini 
file, much as GRUB depends on the files in /boot/grub.

>> They want to be the only OS there, so they just play like they are. 
>> They should stop doing that, maybe they will with Windows 7?
> 
> Doing what? I have no problem at all telling Windows to boot Linux on
> the next go, simply by changing the active partition to be partition 2
> instead of partition 1.  Once I get into Linux, I can reconfigure GRUB
> to default to booting Windows. But after that, I can never get back into
> Linux again, because Windows can't change GRUB's configuration, so if I
> set the active partition to the GRUB partition, it'll still boot
> Windows.

Thing is, it shouldn't require a change to the active partition list.  
But also, GRUB can be told to change the default for a single boot only - 
at least I seem to recall there's an option to do that.

> Now who is the only OS that'll boot?

Installing Linux (at least openSUSE) on a drive with Windows on it, the 
installer will set Windows up as a menu option so you can select either.  
Installing Windows after Linux, though, Windows won't add Linux to the 
boot menu automatically.  I guess that's what I was trying to say.

> If GRUB's boot sector actually loaded the boot sector off the active
> partition, just like ever other boot sector written in the history of
> hard drives on IBM computers and their clones, you could remotely switch
> back and forth by using the same procedure that's worked since day 0 on
> the IBM AT. Sadly, the Linux developers want to be the only OS that can
> be booted, so they didn't bother to follow the standard. ;-)

I had thought GRUB on my system here was set up with the MBR, but I was 
in fact mistaken - it's in the root partition instead.

Jim

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On Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:33:54 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> I'm not sure YaST lets you do it, but that's almost expected, given that
> Linux ignores the flag.  I'm pretty sure I remember the linux
> command-line partitioner (whatever it's called ... fdisk?) letting you
> set it.

YaST will let you do this.  I was just in there checking it out. :-)

Jim

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On Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:13:01 -0200, nemesis wrote:

> Jim Henderson escreveu:
>> On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:24:15 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>> So they can't modify
>>> the Windows boot menu to accomidate Linux. So they clobber the Windows
>>> boot sector with the GRUB boot sector.  Which, honestly, wouldn't be
>>> all *that* awful, if they actually followed the rules for
>>> booting,which is to say, boot the partition marked "active".  If they
>>> did that, you could boot back and forth between Windows and Linux
>>> without being at the console.
>> 
>> Yeah, it's really kinda - well, expected, I guess - that MS behaves
>> that way about how the system boots.  They want to be the only OS
>> there, so they just play like they are.  They should stop doing that,
>> maybe they will with Windows 7?
> 
> I'll eat my underwears if they do. :D

You'll have to video that one. ;-)

Jim

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On Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:58:37 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> ntfs-3g can write safely to NTFS partitions.  I almost said it didn't
>> matter, but forgot that with Windows you do have to modify boot.ini for
>> that purpose.
> 
> To be clear, you have to modify boot.ini to add a new option to the
> Windows boot menu choice. But you do *NOT* have to modify boot.ini to
> boot something instead of Windows. You just change the active partition.
> You can boot off a MS-DOS floppy and change yourself from booting
> Windows to booting Linux or Solaris or whatever else you might have
> there.
> 
> Unfortunately, since GRUB doesn't follow the rules that have been in
> place for 25+ years, this doesn't work with GRUB. Used to work with
> LILO, but apparently GRUB's per-partition boot loader requires GRUB's
> MBR to work right, according to some informal tests I just did.

I think this is because GRUB is actually a more complex piece of software 
compared to LILO.  LILO also had problems booting a system that was on a 
cylinder greater than 1024 IIRC.

>> Yeah, it's really kinda - well, expected, I guess - that MS behaves
>> that way about how the system boots.  They want to be the only OS
>> there,
> 
> Um, no. They behave exactly the opposite. MS's boot sector will boot
> whatever partition is marked "active".  Remember that MS has been making
> multiple OSes for a long time. You've always been able to multi-boot off
> MS operating systems.

That's not how I remember it, but I generally didn't have multiple MS 
OSes installed simultaneously.

> Solaris was the OS that wiped out your partition table, on the grounds
> that you couldn't possibly want Windows *and* Solaris both. And GRUB is
> apparently incapable of booting from its own partition without the help
> of its own MBR, which doesn't pay any attention to the active flag.

Now I could see that with Solaris. :-)

Jim

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